Error reading/rendering Apple Pro Res HQ files

I'm running into nonstop errors occuring during rendering and even scrubbing through movie files imported into an AE project. I'm on a mac, on AE CS4, on the snow leopard OS.

The files were rendered at 29.98 fps (apple pro Res HQ codec) out of a previous AE project, but I'm interpreting them at 23.976 fps after importing into a new AE project. I have a feeling that me trying to play them at a slower frame rate is what is causing the problem.

Does anyone else have this problem? Or are you able to recreate the situation and error?

Unless Final Cut Pro 7 was also installed on the same machine with this previous AE project, I question your claim that the footage is ProRes HQ, because the codec is only available on machines with FCP 7 installed.

Now, if the footage is indeed ProRes HQ, but you're now on a different machine with no FCP 7, you're hosed. Apple makes a free QT ProRes reader, but it doesn't include the ability to read HQ.

If you reinterpret 29.97 apple prores HQ footage as 23.976 (it should just play slower) but in after effects or even in final cut pro (where you can change the frame rate interpretation using cinema tools) an apple pro res file will sometimes just freak out and not play or display.

It must have something to do with the intermediate non-existent frames. The compression must specifically only be able to be decoded at the same framerate it was encoded in.

[Sharad Patel]"Where should I post about this problem with the codec? To warn others?"

Y'know, I'd be tempted to post in the COW's Final Cut Pro Forum, taking the "I had an odd thing happen to me the other day" sort of approach. The heavy hitters there know more about ProRes HQ than anybody, I think.

Thinking about that just sparked an idea: what if you duplicated the 29.97 HQ file for safety's sake, and used Cinema Tools to conform it to 23.976?